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A Mother Crawls Back Home

Adapted from an article in Toronto Star, September 30, 2004, by Christian Cotroneo.
Photo by David Cooper/Toronto Star

Susan lost her son on her doorstep. At least that's how she remembers the day a police officer and a children's aid worker came knocking. They handed her documents and phone numbers. She waved goodbye to her 2 1/2-year-old boy. Susan has trouble recalling the next part of the story.

"The next few months were a blur," she told a roomful of people at Jessie's Centre for Teenagers in downtown Toronto last week. "I continued to use drugs because I had nothing left."

After washing up at a 21-day treatment facility, she finally broke the unnatural rhythm of drugs. And her thoughts turned at last to the child she lost on Thanksgiving weekend in 1999.

Her journey took her from one-on-one counselling to parenting groups to a reunion with her child in November, 2000. But that proved only the beginning.

"Stopping the drug was the easier part," said Susan, now in her mid-30s. "Now I had to repair the bond between my son and I. My son was very busy, clingy and nervous. He was afraid that I would not come back or, worse, be in a drug-induced trance. There were times when I was abusing drugs that he would be sitting in front of me saying `Mommy, Mommy' and I could not see or hear him."

Susan has emerged clean, sober and thankful for the program that helped light her path: the United Way of Greater Toronto's Success By Six.

Dedicated to ensuring children get a good start in life, the service marks its sixth anniversary this year, having helped more than 27,000 parents and 30,000 youngsters below the age of 6. Funded by the United Way of Greater Toronto, it uses 17 agencies to deliver more than 35 programs, about three-quarters of them in communities identified as high-need.

It has much to celebrate. After their first year using Success By Six services, 90 per cent of crack- and heroin-addicted parents remained drug-free, according to the United Way. Even at Jessie's Centre for Teenagers, 95 per cent of children born to young parents had healthy birth weights.

Today, Susan volunteers for several Success By Six agencies as a parent mentor and fundraiser. Drug-free for more than four years, she will attend nursing school this fall.